By Crime Historian Laura James, Esquire (c) 2005-18 WELCOME to my study of historic true crime, a literary blog where the chairs rest at the intersection of history, journalism, law, and murder, and the shelves are filled with the finest true crime literature. STEAL FROM THIS LIBRARY AND IT'S PISTOLS AT DAWN.

The Very Nutty Professor

John Buettner-Janusch was on the far end of the bell curve in many respects. Unquestionably brilliant, Janusch was a geneticist, a primatologist, a prolific author, and one of the leading physical anthropologists of his generation. He taught at several research universities in the United States, including Michigan, Wayne, Yale, Utah, and Duke.

And he was quite cracked in the head.

Janusch was chairing the anthropology department at New York University when the first hints emerged that he'd put his extraordinary scientific mind to a criminal bent. How he imagined that he could keep his curious laboratory experiments a secret is a mystery, but in 1979, the prominent professor was indicted by a federal grand jury in Manhattan for making LSD and methaqualone (quaaludes) in the school lab.

His colleagues at NYU were thunderstruck, certain that it was a group of renegade students who were responsible for the concoctions. Their shock is more easily imagined than described when, in 1980, Professor Janusch was convicted and sentenced for manufacturing drugs and found himself transferred from the hallowed ivory tower to a decidedly public institution, where he remained for three years.

Upon his release from prison, Janusch decided to take energetic measures to exact his revenge. He returned to the lab and cooked up a brew consisting of some exotic poisons: atropine (a naturally occurring alkaloid of atropia belladonna or deadly nightshade), sparteine (a compound derived from the European shrub Scotch broom, Cytisus scoparius), and pilocarpine hydrochloride (an alkaloid found in the leaves of a South American shrub, Pilocarpus jaborandi). This he injected into some pieces of chocolate. These he boxed and mailed anonymously to the home of the judge who sentenced him and the homes of some of his former colleagues.

If his vicious intention was to poison the families of his targets, he succeeded. The judge's wife ate four pieces of the chocolate and collapsed. The wife and daughter of a former colleague also became quite ill. Fortunately, they all recovered, and another two boxes of chocolate were intercepted.

The mad scientist was arrested on his way home from the opera. Soon thereafter, he died of pneumonia in a federal prison.

NYU found itself freshly scandalized. But the university community had no reason to feel embarrassed. After all, Harvard has graduated enough murderers to thoroughly satisfy the gossips in any alumni circle. And many of those gentlemen took degrees in divinity. All of which only goes to show that genius and moral character are not on the same chromosome, arguably the most profound result of any of Professor Janusch's scientific work.

Sources:

"Prof Accused of Making Illegal Drugs in Lab," by the United Press International, Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle Telegram, Oct. 5, 1979.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Hi Laura,
I was one of JBJ's Anthropology students in the semester right before his arrest. I was stunned at the news. I knew he was cut from a different cloth but mad? He wore Nehru jackets 10 years after they were nowhere to be found. He frequently criticized others in his field for pushing pet theories and for manipulating evidence to support their ideas. I thought the guy was the coolest. He was the coolest. But he was apparently too cool thinking he wouldn't get caught. He should have taken his lumps and moved on. Why punish the judge? It would likely take a court transcript to figure that out. There were grad students that ratted him out and helped nail him. I would have thought he'd be angrier at them. The judge must have done something extra inflammatory. I guess we'll never know.

I was a part time graduate student in anthropology in the 1970s. One year I attended a luncheon at the AAA annual meeting, sitting at a table hosted by John Buettner-Janusch. I remember feeling vulnerable when he remarked that we should get rid of the students who hang around the department never getting their degrees. So it was ironic that I later became an attorney and he became a felon. His fate was a stunning reminder that lunacy and brilliance are not mutually exclusive.

Dr. Buettner-Janusch was one of the best men and profs i've ever been privileged to know. He did a lot of good for many people. We should not judge him without knowing all the facts. Perhaps the best summary statement is to say that he was probably too good for this world. I really miss him.

NewspaperArchiveMy most very favorite site on the internet. Millions of digitized, text-searchable newspapers from across the U.S. and the world. If my computer somehow froze up and I had access to only one website, this would be it.

Paper of Record Another pay-to-play website that features searchable historic newspapers. Canada is particularly well represented in its collection.